Travel Diary | Kusameshi x Hiroshima Animation Season
This article is reposted from the WeChat public account: Most Trash Animation Festival
In August 2026, the Most Trash Animation Festival was invited to the Hiroshima Animation Season
During the third Hiroshima Animation Season (HIROSHIMA ANIMATION SEASON 2026), the Most Trash Animation Festival and the Hiroshima Animation Season co-curated a special screening program: 「ヤバいアニメーション映画祭＋HASヤバいセレクション」 (Most Trash Animation Festival + HAS “Trash” Selection)
This was the first time the Most Trash Animation Festival entered the official program system of an international animation film festival. The program was selected from works in the first edition of the Most Trash Animation Festival, while the Hiroshima Animation Season was also invited to choose works from around the world that resonate with the concept of “trash.” On the evening of August 21, Shangshan Ruoshui, founder of the Most Trash Animation Festival, came to Yokogawa Cinema and held a post-screening conversation with Koji Yamamura, discussing the evaluation of animation, creation, and what “trash” actually means.
Shangshan: I didn’t take it too seriously at first — I figured it was just a comprehensive consideration on Hiroshima’s side, wanting to program a section with a different voice. My first thought was whether they would cover our flights (they did!)
Shantetsu: It felt like Yamamura had finally been won over — before, no matter how many times I mentioned it in front of him, deliberately or not, he seemed uninterested. Somewhat gratifying.
Shangshan: The first time I felt a similar chemistry was in Annecy’s WTF section — having such a section at the world’s biggest animation carnival for animation people felt incredibly spicy and numbing! I really love WTF. Although I didn’t think of WTF when I first started Most Trash (the programming effect is similar, but the direction we want to pursue should be different), coming to Hiroshima with Most Trash this time made me think of the WTF section over and over. Because I likewise felt Hiroshima’s — or rather Yamamura’s — tolerance, and also the fact that he’s genuinely worn out from watching “good” films.
Shantetsu: When Yamamura gave his speech at the closing ceremony, he used Most Trash as the opening hook of his address. He said that collaborating on a program with the Most Trash Animation Festival this year also made him start thinking about what is “good” and what is “trash” — he served on the selection jury for all three editions of the Hiroshima Animation Season, and after reviewing so many films, his standards for “good” and “trash” had gone a bit numb. I think this is a problem many other festivals face too, so Most Trash happened to serve them a meal they could immediately bring to the table and chat over while eating. Once Hiroshima finished this table, everyone who sat down knew Most Trash, and they might still remember this taste after they returned home. I think it opened a door within the circle of festival curators.
Sijia: The Hiroshima Animation Season, as the legendary one of the world’s four great animation festivals, should count as one of the authorities of the animation evaluation system. But during the post-screening talk, the artistic director Koji Yamamura also said that he happened to have recently started thinking about selection criteria and how “good” and “bad” should actually be distinguished… Most Trash should be a catalyst!
A festival curator: I felt this screening brought people closer together. Film festivals generally evaluate the “best,” but having a “Most Trash” within the overall event is, in a way, a liberation from the rat race. You could tell many creators were excited and eager to take part in such an event, not knowing what kind of works they would encounter.
Shangshan: Yes — having a Most Trash section at a very proper large film festival is quite magical. Before an animation is called “trash,” it doesn’t carry an essence called “trash.” Only within some evaluation system, some way of watching, some discourse does it gradually acquire that name. As the times progress or regress, part of the trash begins to be absorbed by the good — for instance, the trash (clumsiness) retained in excellent independent animation works actually nourishes a film’s uniqueness. That’s very good, but such “good trash” isn’t what interests me most within Most Trash. I still want to see the trash discarded by most evaluation systems — genuinely trash, valueless trash. I want to see what the state of peeling trash off the good looks like, and how festivals decide whether a film should be praised or discarded. It made me think again of the caterpillar-and-butterfly relationship — the claim that the butterfly is a neuron in the caterpillar’s brain, and inside the chrysalis, that neuron eats the caterpillar’s flesh and then becomes the butterfly; the caterpillar and the butterfly are actually two different things (biology has many takes on this; it’s probably not rigorous). But this claim concretized part of my feelings about “good and trash.”
Shantetsu: Not that much. When I first learned the first edition was going to happen, I quickly arranged a podcast episode with Shangshan Ruoshui, talked through many questions I was curious and puzzled about, and offered some suggestions — so I didn’t support the first Most Trash simply because it seemed “fun.” In Hiroshima I watched the first-edition Most Trash program plus Hiroshima’s trash selection of shorts again, and I think when we use the word “trash” as an adjective, we must make a clear definition and delineate a clear scope before we can use it, because it’s truly too broad. That’s why there must be a platform like the Most Trash Animation Festival to talk about “trash” — which is one of the biggest reasons for its existence. But I also realized: selecting trash is really, really, really hard, because most of Most Trash’s works are merely “not good,” and the “not-trash” parts of them are very hard to ignore.
Shangshan: From a participant’s perspective, this year’s Hiroshima Animation Season as a whole felt much more open to me — many feelings that weren’t there before, becoming more open?, more publicity too. There were probably internal adjustments we don’t know about, which I think is one of the important reasons they invited us. That Most Trash could screen in Hiroshima mainly relied on Yamamura’s invitation — he mentioned in the conversation his fatigue from film reviewing and his reflections on the evaluation system of good and bad, and that he resonated with Most Trash. Yamamura is a great senior who maintains curiosity and an open attitude toward new things. Beyond the resonance, it should also be his own artistic cultivation and his original passion for animation — a willingness to leave room for attempts not yet fully defined. In any case, many thanks!
Shantetsu: 🎤 Passing the mic to Yamamura
Shangshan: If the category of “trash” had the same treatment as “good,” then “yabai” and “trash” would be like “a very mature, thought-provoking, good work” versus “an excellent experimental film with a very strong authorial quality” — both “good,” but very far apart. At the Most Trash post-screening, a Japanese animation creator friend told me I should invite XXX to the second edition of Yabai; her work is relatively dark and obscure hand-drawn animation, but absolutely excellent independent animation — it just doesn’t fit any suitable festival, so it rarely gets selected. I’ve seen that animation, I love it very much, but it would never be trash. It’s yabai. That’s the first difference I noticed. The second is a difference in register: you can directly say “your animation is so yabai,” but you wouldn’t dare directly say “so trash.” Compared to yabai, trash seems to carry more of an offense. Also, Yamamura’s understanding of Most Trash seems to lean more toward the good kind of trash — films that can’t be classified. Although that is part of what makes up trash, it’s not what Most Trash is mainly about — it’s trash, the most trash. If an animation has nowhere to go, that doesn’t mean it’s trash. It just means no place to house it has appeared yet; but if we think it’s not trash, not bad, even commendable, then we may need to find another place. Interestingly, the understanding of Most Trash was bent a little in Hiroshima, yet it still held. Yabai might in the future be able to exist as a section of Most Trash.
ps: The Japanese translation “yabai” was proposed by Most Trash’s photographer Hong Shiliu. We hesitated at first, and by the time we’d used it for a while we never changed it — we never expected Yamamura to identify with the word so much hhh.
Shantetsu: After Hiroshima, I think perhaps the Japanese word yabai is the most fitting non-Chinese term when we discuss “trash.” As a word that simultaneously holds the meanings of two antonyms — “very good” and “very bad” — we cannot know its meaning without context, so it inherently carries a property connected to the chaos of the universe. And I think this concept is very much like metamorphosis in animation: the process of linking two different forms and visualizing that unnamable, chaotic in-between feeling. What differs between “trash” and yabai is that, except in certain specific cases (like saying meat was stewed until very tender), “trash” basically never carries the meaning of “good.” But I don’t think it should stand as “bad” on the opposite side of “good” — rather it’s a kind of “not good,” a feeling of “having deviated from the normal/appropriate range of good,” and that “normal” and “appropriate” should themselves just be statistical concepts, representing the evaluation standard of “good” as defined by the broad majority. So trash can be “not good,” can be “a minority,” “abnormal,” “bizarre” or “unexpected,” and can be… But all in all, the biggest difference in content is that in Hiroshima’s “yabai selection,” the films Yamamura chose were all too high in quality and polish, too mature — too good. Whereas our “trash” appears a bit more feral.
Sijia: Yes — I feel “yabai” may have a broader range, and can even sometimes carry a positive connotation. “Trash” still feels more strongly negative.
A festival curator: There’s a difference, but both are striking in their promotional effect — both extremely curiosity-inducing. I feel perhaps we needn’t dig too deep into the meaning; as an audience member you simply know you’ve come to watch a “particularly different” kind of animation, and while watching you don’t have to sit so formally — you can approach it with an open mind.
Shangshan: I think it’s very possible. Looking across history, if we grow big and strong, it’s probably inevitable. But for now there’s no need to worry, because we’re small and poor, and we still have many questions and curiosities about “trash.” Most Trash tries to pry off a bit of the wall’s paint and resist the existing evaluation system, but it’s quite possible that, in places we haven’t noticed, we’re secretly building another set of standards. If that truly happens, it would by no means be intentional — it would be because we were too foolish to be vigilant about it and even felt smug about it. Keeping the crust out of your eyes is a genuinely difficult thing.
Shantetsu: There are actually some festivals without a jury system (I recently learned of one called Bang Awards — they have a section where any submission gets in, is posted on their website where everyone can watch it, and after watching you can vote, with the highest-voted works ultimately selected), but most humans still prefer appealing to authority, because it reduces the cost of thinking and filtering, so such festivals find it hard to make much of a splash or be widely discussed. As a public event, Most Trash adopted most festivals’ judging framework, which I consider a strategy for attracting attention — if the first edition had just grabbed a few random people off the street as jurors with zero promotion, probably nobody would have watched. But from another angle, the very existence of a so-called “elitist aesthetic” jury and selection system itself provides an opportunity to discuss it or diss it. Back in the first edition, audiences were already debating during the screening — “this isn’t trashy enough at all” — or after the awards, “how did this one win?” I think that’s great. Collaborating on screenings with traditional/large festivals is also a kind of early “pushing out” strategy — only with more participants can there be more possibilities and greater meaning. What the future holds is hard to say; it involves all kinds of practical factors, and given the existence of the act of “selection,” I don’t rule out the possibility of it becoming that. But we do have one rule to guard against it: if Most Trash ever loses its reason to exist, loses its ability to raise questions, or starts becoming boring, we will suspend or end Most Trash at any time. At least I don’t think the first edition was there yet.
Sijia: Animation festivals are elitist, authoritative occasions — it’s hard to avoid being absorbed into various people’s discourse… But I feel Most Trash is still rather grassroots. As for whether it will become elitist, you’ll need to consciously adjust it yourselves (sorry, I feel like I sound a bit preachy)…
A festival curator: As long as a curator is making selections, there will inevitably be judgment criteria — either a very personal set of standards or a very objective set; there can be no such thing as no standards. But even when I run regular festivals, I strongly dislike so-called elitist standards. What we hope to encourage is the pure, the interesting, the creative. Is that also consistent with Most Trash?
Shangshan: In order of importance: guided by a mysterious force / fresh and fun / getting feedback / catching a breath from the festival evaluation system / meeting lots of fun people
Shantetsu: In order of importance: believing the world needs Most Trash | doing things we find interesting | temporarily escaping everyday aesthetic fatigue | meeting/gathering people who love animation or are interesting | because it’s punk
Shangshan: Yes hahaha! But I can’t find the Hiroshima booklet! So let’s skip that for now
Shantetsu: Hard to judge suitability, but there are definitely ones that could make it in.
Shangshan: I didn’t expect such good treatment — great food, great lodging, and from the main venue to the Most Trash screening venue, Doi came over and got us a taxi. Also, it’s so hot outside! The venues are so cold! The hotel breakfast buffet was delicious
Shantetsu: Before leaving I thought: wow, so many friends are coming this time, we can all have fun together. But in reality, attending a festival is truly draining — after a day of intense film-watching and socializing, your battery is quickly dead. With many old friends and new ones, we only managed to meet and say hello, and it was hard to have any deep exchange on-site; plus there was always a sense of urgency while chatting (the next screening is about to start and you have to rush over, the party is about to end and you’ll be kicked out, the restaurant you want to eat at is about to close…), so we were always rushing around. I brought board games from Tokyo and never got to play; brought letter mahjong too and only played a little on the second-to-last day. Every day back at the hotel I fell asleep instantly.
Shangshan: This screening in Hiroshima had Japanese subtitles. Some of the jokes we worried might not land — but everyone laughed out loud anyway. The Japanese subtitles were added by the creators themselves, mostly translated with AI, and the subtitles also had some visual effects matched to the images. Some subtitles appeared very fast, some text was tiny — extremely unprofessional. Wonderfully trashy. Of the Hiroshima trash films Yamamura selected, I only saw one before heading backstage early to prepare
Shantetsu: The atmosphere was great — I heard many kinds of laughter: laughter from finding things funny, and laughter from finding things baffling, and very few people left midway, no more than 10 in the whole session. A reporter from eiga.com also came to watch and wrote a report (published on their site on August 22); for traditional festival audiences it should have been a fairly novel experience too. And our trash merchandise, the fly swatters, were quite popular — when Sachiko Yokota went on stage to receive her award on the last day in Hiroshima, she was holding our blue fly swatter (attention-grabbing!).
Shangshan: So many people came! The owner of Yokogawa Cinema was also very friendly! Shancheng is so dependable! The conversation with Yamamura went unexpectedly smoothly too, ending in a very pleasant atmosphere. Afterward we strolled and drank with everyone; sitting by the river near the A-Bomb Dome chatting, my feelings were a bit complicated.
Shantetsu: I still hadn’t expected a full house, because Yokogawa Cinema is quite a distance from the main venue — over twenty minutes by car, or about forty minutes on foot. Usually people at the main venue can watch the entire program just by staying there, and unless they missed a section they really wanted to see, they wouldn’t go to the satellite venue. Afterward I asked Yamamura why he chose Yokogawa, and he said it was to make it convenient for residents living in the city to watch the festival’s films. But Most Trash only had one screening at the Yokogawa satellite venue this time, so having so many people come all the way to Yokogawa was both surprising and delightful. My thought: good thing we printed A2-size newspapers — when audience members unfolded the newspaper one by one in their cinema seats, it was stunning, like small wildflowers suddenly blooming across a desert.
Sijia: I think both the time and place of this screening were chosen very well — 9:30 pm, an independent small cinema… packed, even people sitting on the stairs. The people who came were first of all festival audiences — professional (?) and sincere, probably the group best able to catch Most Trash’s programming. The atmosphere was especially good.
A festival curator: Perhaps “Most Trash” might actually be someone else’s “best”? I remember what the Hiroshima artistic director Koji Yamamura said at the closing ceremony moved me very much. Roughly: festivals and animation creation are about pursuing something beyond established standards. My understanding is: so as not to pander to the real world. To me, the Most Trash Animation Festival is a guardian of what lies beyond established standards, and a guardian of the spirit of pure creation.
Shangshan: Even trashier! The trash was magnified! So satisfying to watch! I thoroughly enjoyed laughing out loud together with the audience in the dark.
Shantetsu: The trashy visuals and trashy audio were both magnified! Extraordinarily trash! But the cinema environment still felt too serious — as soon as the lights went out there was a muscle-memory sense of having to sit down and watch the film properly (though I stood at the very back watching the whole time). Most Trash should really be screened in unconventional places, where people can eat, drink, and move around freely, chat and laugh while watching, and give the most sincere feedback and discussion right after each film, rather than having to summon their memory afterward to reflect on everything at once.
Sijia: I was late and missed the Most Trash part — only saw the HAS part… sorry… but I imagine it was quite striking!
A festival curator: We rushed over from another venue, but regrettably still missed the first half — such a pity. We watched the second half, Hiroshima’s own trash selections, and kept exclaiming “pretty powerful,” “this isn’t trashy at all.” I feel this section actually selected a kind of personal taste and distinctiveness of the author — sometimes clumsy, sometimes primitive, but sometimes extremely bold, sincere, and lovable.
Sijia: After watching, I felt it was absolutely worth it! Copying my short review on Douban: “…At the beginning everyone laughed loudly; in the latter half the whole room fell silent — not out of boredom, but because the brain began to adapt to the director’s unique language and truly entered the story, and was moved… Niulai can only ever migrate and flee, never confronting problems head-on, and I couldn’t help wondering: what kind of life is this a metaphor for…?…” This film really must be seen in person. As for why I screened Niulai in Hiroshima — I was too eager to see it, and I happened to be attending the Hiroshima Animation Season, where I could meet many animation people; better lucky than early, so we appreciated it together. This appreciation gathering was entirely private, with no official connection, and was invitation-only with the location kept secret. Actually many people present (including half of them Japanese) were drawn in and moved. I think they, precisely because they hadn’t encountered the Chinese domestic derivative discussions and memes, had a rather pure perspective — which indirectly proves how great Niulai is.
Shangshan: Funny films attract me; I also like traditional narrative films
Shantetsu: One type is works that sincerely want to tell something; the other type is works where both the eyes and the ears feel comfortable at the same time
Sijia: Consistent as always — works with their own unique expression, new, interesting, and unpretentious.
A festival curator: What attracts me most is of course what I consider “good” films, but I think everyone’s definition of “good” is a bit different. For example, extremely utilitarian works made purely to pander to festival tastes with selection as the goal don’t attract me much — I prefer pure things. During my career I’ve attended a dozen or so festivals around the world, and I think most festivals’ regret is that, because submission volumes are so large, works competing on resources and production tend to stand out more. But animation’s possibilities should be far greater — among the works that don’t get selected, there are actually quite a few pure treasures worth being dug out, worth being loved.
Shangshan: Leave behind a total mess! People will surely come ask us why we stopped, and we’ll answer why we stopped. Then before long a similar festival will spring up, and we’ll start regretting missing the era’s dividends, not charging to the front lines for a share. Many years later, facing young creators, we’ll reminisce about the good old days. But as for the times, I don’t think we’ll leave anything.
Shantetsu: At the very least, we’d leave the ruins of a trashy website you can only enter by playing a mini-game (or maybe a 404 not found), some trashy newspapers, some trashy fly swatters that may take five hundred years to decompose, and people’s memories — joyful or doubtful.
Teacher Chen’s impressions of watching Most Trash in Hiroshima:
Before the Most Trash screening in Hiroshima, I happened to catch a Contemporary Classics (International) animated shorts screening featuring shorts by Don Hertzfeldt, Nikita Diakur, David OReilly, and Tomek Popakul — these are the most “powerful” films in the world today. Yet I suddenly realized that the reason they are considered the strongest is precisely because all these films share one common taste — trash. This trash has its own lineage: from the pursuit of minimalism to the pursuit of contrast between the refined and the crude, from the embrace of bad taste to the subversion of established aesthetics, and even from anti-luxury to anti-commercial to anti-elite. These “countercurrents” constitute the “power” of these works, constitute a vivid, raw force. This “trash” is not anti-intellectual — it is candor, is spontaneity. The Most Trash screening seems to go one step further, even more extreme. Although the core concept of “trash” is still under constant discussion, it is clearly in step with the current era’s evolution toward decentralization and humanism — of course also carrying a certain populist coloring. The live experience of the Most Trash screening was fun, like a kind of safety and release within this anxious and repressive era, an opportunity to re-examine animation as well as oneself. I’m very interested in continuing to observe.
After the event, this screening and conversation also drew the attention of Japanese media The Japanese film news outlet eiga.com reported on this screening, with a feature on the Most Trash Animation Festival titled “Popular in China, a Collection of ‘Incredible’ Works from Around the World — What Exactly Is the Most Trash Animation Festival?”
Report link: https://eiga.com/news/20260822/18/#google_vignette
Submit:https://mosttrashanimationfestival.neocities.org/submit
